Back in our main timeline, Lucid is defeated at last.
I miss having that much power…
It was power that was already yours. You'll get it again someday, for sure. Yeah, you're right. Anyways…
Is it over? Is that it?
I... think it's over. But the barrier around the city isn't gone yet. What are you going to do now? Dreams and reality are separate once more. And now, just like any other, this dream will slowly fade away... But if the dream ends, then you'll… The nightmare's over. All of it. If the people, or the Erdas, are safe, I've fulfilled my purpose. I don't need to be here anymore. … Once the fog's lifted, I assume you'll get back to your quest. It won't be easy for you, but I think you‘ll come out on top.
So… that's it. Nothing to do but wait, huh? Seems like it. Good job, Tear. You really saved the day this time. I'd feel better about it if I was saving real people… but Erdas in the shape of people aren't that different, in the end.
For our troubles, we got our hands on the Lachelein Arcane Symbol, which is a butterfly for obvious reasons. Using our Hyper Burning bonuses, we then also grab a level 5 one immediately and equip it. This'll put our AF back over where we want it to be for the next area.
This also fills up our first full row of Symbols. The next row doesn't appear until we have access to a fourth to equip, but it'll pop up automatically. Our gear is coming along as well, though we need better "Everything but rings and a weapon." Even our outfit, while technically BIS gear, will need replacing. The clock stops for no one.
While we do have the levels necessary to move on to the next area right now, though, I decide to stop. This is for a couple of reasons.
The first (and most important) is that for this and the next few updates I was busy playing in the morning after work before I went to bed. This meant I would frequently be playing until a fair bit of time after I was supposed to be in bed, so it was vitally important that I keep my playtime relatively short. It wasn't, of course, and I wound up finishing today's footage at around an hour after I should have gone to sleep, but in the end my wife didn't find out and as long as I don't do anything stupid like advertise the fact in a publicly available Let's Play forum no one will ever be the wiser.
Uh..?What?
I think you should go to sleep at a reasonable hour!!Anyways, reason number two—
Don't just ignore your health! Everyone, remember to play video games in moderation! 
We're going to talk some more about Lucid, because her place in the story is left unfinished by just Lachelein alone and we're skipping a bunch of bonus content that gives context to what she was actually trying to accomplish here. We've done enough Maple, it's time to talk Story!
So Lucid is an elf, and in MapleStory canon all elves were frozen as a direct result of the Black Mage's curse on Mercedes—queen of the elves and one of the ancient heroes. Unlike most elves, Lucid had a power over dreams that left her mind completely awake, and she wound up falling into despair over how alone she was over the next several hundred years. This lasted until she met the Black Mage (pictured above) by complete accident, touching consciousnesses in the dreamworld. The Black Mage promised her a whole new world, and she took his hand to break out of the ice and become one of his commanders.
This was all well and good, and she did some shenanigans with an alternate future dreamworld that was sent to people's dreams to give them insomnia—we would have done something about that, but we were busy being in a hat at the time. It's ok, Kaiser has our back or something.
Maybe Velderoth saved everyone this time?Sure, let's go with that.
Unfortunately, before the Black Mage's plans came to fruition, she asked him to show a glimpse of the new world they were working to make, and he thought that'd be just awesome, actually. So he showed her the world they were working towards.
She saw nothing.
The new world would have nothing at all. Not even the Mage himself.
Finding out that the Black Mage wished for his own nonexistence, Lucid decided to rebel. She set up shop in the Arcane River and made Lachelein as a city that would exist without sadness or pain, just people being eternally happy. Her goal was to party so hard that even the Black Mage would realize there was something better than nonexistence, and put an end to his plan to destroy everything forever.
Unfortunately for her, Lucid spread her powers too far and got trapped in her own dream. She could control almost anything there, but certain Nightmares were beyond her ability to control and she couldn't wake up anymore even if she wanted to. She resolved herself to change the Black Mage's mind once and for all and shroud the entire world in sweet dreams, at which point she would allow the nightmare to swallow her whole.
Then she got the shit kicked out of her by a magical girl idol flinging dragons around.
This knocks her further into her nightmare, and she will be spending the next while trying to contact the Black Mage. Once she does, she'll touch his memory and immediately get cut off from the guy forever, left completely alone in a prison of her own nightmares. This will go on until Protective Mask pulls her out of there, because that's what Protective Mask's there for.
It is also revealed that Protective Mask was actually Dream Mercedes all along. After this, she's taken into custody by Mercedes and brought back to Elluel, the homeland of the Elves.
Once you've viewed all of this plot, it's actually possible to see her inside a little prison bubble in Elluel if you feel like going to visit. She's sleeping there and while she's yet to wake up, while Queen Mercedes hopes that she has nice dreams this time.
And so ends the story of Lucid…
…Or it would, except this is the DREAMER update. See, Lucid's having a new dream.
In it, she's brought back all of her friends from Lachelein and given them all a proper party atmosphere to deal with so that they can actually be happy this time. It's a fluffy event that's supposed to show that she's slowly recovering and maybe someday will wake back up again. Unlike before, nobody's trying to break out.
Instead, they're all trying their best to make Lucid happy because they all know that they're dreams and ultimately ephemeral. They don't want Lucid to catch on to the fact that she's wound up in a dream again, and would really like the party to go on without a hitch until it winds down and Lucid returns to her rest with good memories this time.
Except Lucid also knows it's a dream, and knows what they're doing. So she's trying not to let them know she knows, while they don't let her know they know, and it's all an elaborate dance that's so very, very heartrending if you think about it for more than a minute.
This event would hit if anyone in MapleStory bothered to read event dialogue, basically.
In conclusion, Lucid is the best-written villain in the entire Arcane River, and it's not particularly close.
But I know what you're thinking: "Gee, TeeQueue, that's an incredibly large amount of information out of nowhere about a sympathetic anti-villain. I don't see how it has anything to do with our plucky magical girl idol, though."
And that's because you didn't let me finish, because it always comes back to magical girl idols.
You see, while in her dream Lucid decided to abuse her power over everything to create a Dream Angelic Buster to hold an impromptu idol duet concert with her. As a consummate professional, even as a figment of someone's imagination she's willing to drop everything if it's to make her fans happy. This leads us to ABxLucid, which is not implemented in v251.
—That's not an error, it's because it's slated for v252, don't worry about it for now, we'll get to it at the very end of everything. I promise.
All of that is to say, we beat Lucid so hard that she became a fan. Goodnight, everybody!
I play this game as a joke.
ONE MORE SONG! ONE MORE SONG!
The Spirit Tree... It's crying…
It can be felt, but not seen. You cannot hear it, but you know it is there. What is it?
